2 The history of the Scioto Company, by which so many Frenchmen as well as Americans were ruined, warranted an even stronger statement. Though Washington did not know what was going on, he cannot be acquitted of a lack of due precaution in patronizing leading agents of these speculations, and introducing them in France.--_Editor._ Some vices make their approach with such a splendid appearance, that we scarcely know to what class of moral distinctions they belong. They are rather virtues corrupted than vices, originally. But meanness and ingratitude have nothing equivocal in their character. There is not a trait in them that renders them doubtful. They are so originally vice, that they are generated in the dung of other vices, and crawl into existence with the filth upon their back. The fugitives have found protection in you, and the levee-room is their place of rendezvous. As the Federal Constitution is a copy, though not quite so base as the original, of the form of the British Government, an imitation of its vices was naturally to be expected. So intimate is the connection between _form and practice_, that to adopt the one is to invite the other. Imitation is naturally progressive, and is rapidly so in matters that are vicious. Soon after the Federal Constitution arrived in England, I received a letter from a female literary correspondent (a native of New York) very well mixed with friendship, sentiment, and politics. In my answer to that letter, I permitted myself to ramble into the wilderness of imagination, and to anticipate what might hereafter be the condition of America. I had no idea that the picture I then drew was realizing so fast, and still less that Mr. Washington was hurrying it on. As the extract I allude to is congenial with the subject I am upon, I here transcribe it: [_The extract is the same as that given in a footnote, in the Memorial to Monroe, p. 180_.] Impressed, as I was, with apprehensions of this kind, I had America constantly in my mind in all the publications I afterwards made. The First, and still more the Second, Part of the Rights of Man, bear evident marks of this watchfulness; and the Dissertation on First Principles of Government [XXIV.] goes more directly to the point than either of the former. I now pass on to other subjects. It will be supposed by those into whose hands this letter may fall, that I have some personal resentment against you; I will therefore settle this point before I proceed further. If I have any resentment, you must acknowledge that I have not been hasty in declaring it; neither would it now be declared (for what are private resentments to the public) if the cause of it did not unite itself as well with your public as with your private character, and with the motives of your political conduct.